Archives

Andrea Rich, Indranil Basu, Tatiana Akhmetshina, and the group of Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2023.

The Journal of Magnesium and Alloys and the International Magnesium Society bestowed the International Magnesium Science & Technology Award, Person of the Year (2022) on Prof. Jörg F. Löffler.

Andrea Rich, Jörg Löffler and the group of Samuel Montibeller, Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2022.

After 10 years in R&D at Volkswagen Group, our former doctoral student and postdoc David Klaumünzer has accepted a Professorship at the Department of Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering at HAW Hamburg, Germany.

In a recent Nature Communications publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology unravel via multiple length-scale analysis the Invar effect, universally observed in magnetic Fe-based glasses. On the atomic scale it strongly affects the average Fe–Fe pair distance and can even cause thermal contraction of the Fe–Fe pairs.

Andrea Rich, Mihai Stoica, and the group of Christian Wegmann, Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2021

A collaboration between researchers at the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology and Empa has shown that Pd-based metallic glass demonstrates thrombogenic resistance that is substantially higher than that of state-of-the-art Ti64. With its superior mechanical properties, the Pd-based glass is particularly interesting for blood-contacting, load-bearing medical devices. The results are presented in Advanced Functional Materials.

Prof. Jörg F. Löffler has been selected to the class of 2021 MRS Fellows for his pioneering contributions to novel metallic materials design.

In a recent ACS Nano publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology have resolved the structure of a hierarchically phase-​separated metallic glass with a small volume fraction of (nano-​)crystalline inclusions. Applying X-​ray diffraction computed nanotomography (XRD-​nCT), they achieved submicron resolution by deploying a 500 nm focused monochromatic beam at the ESRF ID11 beamline.

Martina Cihova wins various awards in 2020

A collaboration between researchers at EPF Lausanne and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology has shown that thermal drawing of metallic glasses in a polymer matrix generates conducting fibers with arbitrary transverse geometries, micro- and nanoscale feature sizes, and extreme aspect ratios. These fibers will have unique applications in flexible electronics and neuroscience. The results are presented in Nature Nanotechnology.

In a recent Advanced Science publication, Güven Kurtuldu and Jörg F. Löffler of the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) illustrate that metastable crystals can be isolated via ultrafast calorimetry. Investigating their thermophysical properties, they find that even a simple binary Au–Si eutectic alloy reveals four distinctly different melting points.

The phenomenon of age-hardening in metals was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century. 110 years later, a research collaboration between the Montanuniversität Leoben and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology has revealed that this effect depends strongly on material dimensions. The results are presented in Nature Communications.

The trip to Appenzell with a visit to the Aescher Wildkirchli and the various hiking tours was a unique experience.

In a recent Advanced Materials publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) present TEM experiments designed to follow the active nano-corrosion processes of biodegradable Mg alloys over periods ranging from seconds to days. They find that cathodically polarized dealloying of intermetallic nanoprecipitates governs their electrochemical reactivity. This presents a fundamentally new concept for active materials such as Mg alloys.

In a recent Adv. Mater. publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) and Complex Materials have documented the creation of ordered porous Mg scaffolds via 3D NaCl printing (and sintering), Mg melt infiltration, and subsequent salt removal by leaching. These set the premise for a unique combination of tunable mechanical properties and the potential of being deployed as biodegradable implant, as the scaffold can be tuned to predictably biodegrade in the human body.

In a recent Nat. Comm. publication, Jörg F. Löffler from the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) and his colleague Jürgen Schawe from Mettler Toledo show that metallic glasses generally reveal multiple critical cooling rates that produce different types of monolithic glass, which the authors termed “self-doped glass” (SDG) and “chemically homogeneous glass” (CHG). The CHG reveals a tendency towards stochastic nucleation, which underlines the novelty of this glass state.

In a recent Phys. Rev. Lett. article, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) have demonstrated that magnetization switching in ferromagnetic nanoparticles is linked to the dynamics of topological point defects, which form as Skyrmion lines and break via the creation of emergent magnetic monopoles. These move at speeds exceeding those of any other magnetic object known, and thus generate unprecedented solenoidal electric fields of several megavolts per meter.

Michalis Charilaou, former doctoral student and postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Physics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.

In a recent PNAS publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) have demonstrated that crystal nucleation from the melt may generally occur via an intermediate nucleation of metastable quasicrystals. This transition path was observed with a newly developed method of “up-quenching”, which can yield the discovery of hidden transient phases that are key to understanding the nucleation and crystallization behavior in metallic, polymeric and biological systems.

Fabian Haag, Martina Cihova and Dr. Leopold Berger win various Young Scientist Awards at international conferences in 2017.

The members of LMPT spent two funny days in Ticino.

Jörg F. Löffler wins the DGM Prize “Breakthrough” 2016 of the German Society of Materials. This award is “bestowed on an excellent scientist in the middle of his/her research career for outstanding scientific achievements which represent a breakthrough in materials science and/or for initiating a new research field.”

Stefan Pogatscher wins one of Austria’s highest research prizes for his work on aging of aluminum alloys, which solved a long-standing problem regarding the negative effect of “natural aging” in Al6000 alloys and described the atomistic mechanism controlling this aging. These results, elaborated at the Montanuniversität Leoben and ETH Zurich, have led to significantly improved properties of AlMgSi alloys at shorter processing times on an industrial level.

This Nat. Comm. article presents experimental evidence for a solid-solid phase transition via the formation of a metastable liquid in a metallic glass system. It provides further insight into phase transition theory and may also be of great importance for the understanding of new processing techniques where rapid cooling and heating are applied (e.g. 3D printing of metals).

The 2015 LMPT Christmas Party took place at the ETH Zurich faculty restaurant. It was a special event, as on the same occasion we had to say “goodbye” to our dear group members Bernd Schönfeld and Peter Uggowitzer, who officially retired – unlike as it seemed!

Icosahedral short-range order (SRO) often dominates the structure and thus the properties of metallic glasses. This Phys. Rev. Lett. article now clarifies via MD simulations how such icosahedral SRO influences glass formation and mechanical properties.

Prof. Jörg Löffler has received the Senior Scientist Award of this year’s International Symposium on Metastable, Amorphous, and Nanostructured Materials (ISMANAM 2015, Paris).

Stefan Pogatscher, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship in the area of “Materials Technology of Aluminum” at the Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria.

Robert Maaß, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

This Adv. Funct. Mater. article summarizes our research over the last decade involving in-situ analysis of shear-band dynamics during straining experiments. It discusses the various stages of shear banding together with the extended time and length scales involved, also in the more general context of disordered materials.

The German Society for Materials Science awards the Tammann Medal 2014 to Professor Peter Uggowitzer for his outstanding metallurgical work in the areas of alloy and process development of steels and light metals; in particular nitrogen steels and aluminum and magnesium alloys for the automotive industry and medical technology.

This Phys. Rev. Lett. article describes how precipitation aging can be controlled in AlMgSi alloys via a part-per-million addition of Sn solutes, and explains via thermodynamic modeling and DFT calculations that this control of aging is due to vacancy diffusion which can be tuned by the Sn solutes. This “diffusion on demand” principle has great scientific and technological ramifications.

Esther Amstad, former diploma student at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship on “Soft Materials” at the Institute of Materials at EPF Lausanne.

Eric Daub, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship on “Earthquake Physics” at the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis, USA.

David Klaumünzer has been awarded the ETH Silver Medal for his outstanding Ph.D. thesis “Stick-slip shear banding in metallic glasses”. The ETH Medal is awarded to the top 5% of ETH theses.

For the second time, the ETH Students' Association (VSETH) has selected Peter J. Uggowitzer as a recipient of the Goldene Eule (“Golden Owl”) prize, awarded by students to instructors who they deem particularly competent in teaching.  

Kisor K. Sahu, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship in the School of Minerals, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar.

This Phys. Rev. Lett. article shows via in-situ acoustic emission monitoring that shear-band initiation results from a softening mechanism by local structural dilatation with volume changes of a few percent only. Because these are typical values of excess free volume in the undercooled liquid region near T_g, the onset of plasticity is attributed to a “stress-induced glass transition”.

This Phys. Rev. Lett. article describes the low-temperature freezing dynamics of the hemo-ilmenite mixed-spin oxide system. Above the Fe(III) percolation threshold unusual magnetic jumps occur at low temperatures (< 3 K), which is explained by a layerwise partitioning resulting from strong exchange and superexchange interactions that generate a collective rotation of the magnetic moments within this quasistochastic system.

LMPT organized the 17^th International Symp. on Metastable, Amorphous and Nanostructured Materials in the Main Building of ETH Zurich, July 4^th-9^th, 2010. More than 400 scientists participated in this symposium.

Alban Dubach and Anja Hänzi are awarded the ETH Silver Medal for their outstanding Ph.D. theses “Inhomogeneous deformation of Zr-based bulk metallic glasses” and “Development of biodegradable magnesium alloys for cardiovascular stent applications”, respectively. Drs. Dubach and Hänzi received these awards on the occasion of the doctoral awards ceremony on May 21^th, 2010 at ETH Zurich.

Together with two other young researchers, Anja Hänzi wins this year's Materials Research Prize (MRC Prize), which is awarded for the best materials-related Ph.D. thesis with relevance to industrial applications at ETH Zurich. Dr. Hänzi received this award on the occasion of the 5th MRC Graduate Symposium on May 10^th, 2010 in Zurich.

Yasin Ekinci was awarded the FISBA Optics Prize of the Swiss Society for Optics and Microscopy (SSOM) “for outstanding work in the area of modern photonics and photonic microsystems”. Dr. Ekinci received this award on the occasion of the 60th anniversary celebration of the SSOM on October 30th, 2009 in Burgdorf.

Petra Gunde received an award for best poster on the 8^th Int. Conf. on Magnesium Alloys and their Applications (Weimar, Germany) for her work entitled “Development of Mg–Yb–Zn alloys for medical applications”.

This Nat. Mater. article presents the development and characterization of a new class of biodegradable MgZnCa glasses with tailorable corrosion properties, which result from an extended solubility of Zn in the amorphous structure generating a passivating ZnO layer. Apart from great scientific ramifications, these properties together with high mechanical strength and adequate tissue healing reported in in-vivo tests render these materials ideal candidates for temporary implants

Anja Hänzi received the “International Light Metals Technology (LMT) David StJohn Award for Best Paper” on July 1^st, 2009 at the LMT conference in Queensland, Australia, for her work entitled "Design strategy for microalloyed ultra-ductile magnesium alloys for medical applications".

For the second time, Adrienne Nelson received an award for best poster at the CCMX Annual Meeting, for her work entitled "Metallic foams produced from particle-stabilized emulsions".

Michael Schinhammer was awarded the CHF 1,000.00 SVMT Prize for the best Master’s thesis in materials science at ETH Zurich in 2008, entitled “Evaluation of the degradation behavior of bio-absorbable Mg alloys”. Mr. Schinhammer received this award at the SVMT Students day on March 13^th.